As a psychoanalyst, Stone's specialty is personality disorders so it is not surprising that most of the mass murderers in his study were diagnosed with antisocial, psychopathic, narcissistic or paranoid personality disorder.
As a group, serial killers suffer from a variety of personality disorders, including psychopathy, anti-social personality, and others. Most, however, are not adjudicated as insane under the law.
While few studies have systematically examined the prevalence of BPD in those who commit homicide, Yarvis20 reported that BPD was one of the more common psychiatric diagnoses in a series of 100 murderers.
Narcissists are characterized by an utter lack of empathy. Most serial and mass murderers suffer from a pathologized form of narcissism.
Some serial killers kidnap and/or torture their victims prior to murdering them. While it's not always clear what motivates serial killers to commit such heinous acts, abnormal psychological processes—notably severe antisocial tendencies—are to blame.
Some serial killers have been diagnosed by psychologists as psychopaths, suffering from an antisocial personality disorder (APD). This makes them unlikely to conform to social norms, irritable and aggressive and lack of remorse.
The triad links cruelty to animals, obsession with fire-setting, and persistent bedwetting past the age of five, to violent behaviors, particularly homicidal behavior and sexually predatory behavior.
'Potentially, a significant proportion of mass or serial killers may have had neurodevelopmental disorders such as ASD (autism spectrum disorder) or head injury.
Serial killers characteristically lack empathy for others, coupled with an apparent absence of guilt about their actions. At the same time, many can be superficially charming, allowing them to lure potential victims into their web of destruction.
Overall, our research shows that a high percentage of homicide perpetrators develop full or partial criteria PTSD.
In The Anatomy of Violence, criminologist Dr. Adrian Raine says that, “Genetics and environment work together to encourage violent behaviour.” Therefore, it seems like there are various factors namely, genetics, environment, trauma and personality traits that contribute to the making of a serial killer.
The average person has an IQ of around 95-105. The average serial killer, according to The Serial Killer Information Center, has an IQ of 94.5. Slightly below the lower side of average.
Our study found that affective murderers lacked the prefrontal functioning that can control aggressive impulses.
Many serial killers come from unstable families with criminal, psychiatric, or alcoholic histories. These killers often have terrible relationships with their families, and often use them as their first victims.
They never learn the appropriate responses to trauma, and never develop other emotions, which is why they find it difficult to empathize with others. Research shows that certain genes can predispose people to violence. Many serial killers experience childhood trauma or early separation from their mothers.
People who do the worst things often have troubled brains.
On SPECT, the brains of murderers show abnormal activity in a variety of brain regions, especially the prefrontal cortex involved with empathy, judgment, and forethought.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill-seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking, and killings may be executed as such. The victims may have something in common; for example, demographic profile, appearance, gender or race.
Serial killers almost always lack remorse. Most of the time, though, lack of remorse is directly related to a killer's lack of empathy. If you're unable to empathize with someone who is afraid or in pain, you aren't going to feel much (if any) remorse about ending that person's life.
Those traits are an integral part of a serial killer's personality. Generally, the serial killer is a lonely person, cold, distant, callous, and ruthless in his violence. He entices his victims with an apparently charming but deceitful and manipulative approach.
Why are serial killers insecure? It may seem to be counterintuitive on the surface but many serial killers are actually insecure individuals who are compelled to kill due to a morbid fear of rejection. In many cases, the fear of rejection seems to result from having been abandoned by their mother in early childhood.
Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump: At an early age, Forrest is deemed to have a below-average IQ of 75. He has an endearing character and shows devotion to his loved ones and duties, character traits that bring him into many life-changing situations.
He examined the police records and where possible, interviewed both the murderers and their 107 surviving victims. Based on his research, victims have only a 15.9% chance of surviving once a serial killer begins an assault or abducts them.
The appropriately named Marilyn vos Savant is in a class of her own. According to Guinness World Records, her astonishing IQ of 228 is the highest ever recorded. The daughter of an Italian and a German immigrant, vos Savant was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1946.
Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer is a British true crime television series, made by FirstLookTV. It examines the crimes of various serial killers and speculates what may have made them kill. The show regularly features psychologists Linda Papadopoulos, Glenn Wilson, and journalist Paola Totaro.
The researchers suggest that while people high in psychopathy are more likely to commit a crime, murder is a special case. Yes, psychopathy has been linked to certain types of murder, especially the premeditated murder of a stranger or slim acquaintance. But most murders don't fall into this category.